On Oni Pond

Like every album from experimental Philly rock band Man Man, their new On Oni Pond finds the wolfish crew to be more traditionally tuneful and less grating than the last time out.

Like every Man Man album, On Oni Pond finds the wolfish Philadelphia crew to be more traditionally tuneful and less grating than the last time out. The obvious play is to acknowledge it as part of the ongoing maturation of Man Man, yet it always feels strange talking about “maturity” for a band that never sounded young. That isn’t to say Man Man sounded old, as in tired and tame. It’s more in the sense that everything from Honus Honus’ lupine howling to their dilapidated percussion warranted adjectives like “grizzled,” “feral,” “untamed.” The junkyard dog descriptor made sense-- Man Man sounded like a band that lived on scraps and aged seven times quicker than everyone else. But really, “maturity” is something of a feint listening to On Oni Pond. Perhaps they’re becoming more “adult”, in that while Man Man puts forth the outer appearance of having their shit together, on the inside, their darker impulses are repressed into something more grotesque and frightening.

But at first, what you’ll notice is the utter lack of the kind of squealing, squawking affectations that could clear the room on The Man in a Blue Turban With a Faceor Six Demon Bag. As with 2011’s Life Fantastic, Saddle Creek majordomo Mike Mogis produces and more than ever, Man Man's reliance on pure rhythm becomes readily apparent-- I hesitate to call On Oni Pond a “danceable” record or even “funky”, though it’s got groove and Honus’ lyrics often function like chants, regardless of how verbose they are. I couldn’t imagine this getting booted off any radio playlist, but I think of On Oni Pond as positioning Man Man as an offbeat version of bands like My Morning Jacket or even Animal Collective-- rootsy and rooted in indie, but now a big deal rock band with a body-moving impulse that puts them up for pretty much every festival other than Warped Tour or Rock the Bells.

By the same token, Man Man’s confrontational edge happened to be one of their greatest assets. Previous piano ballads like “Van Helsing Boombox” and “Rabbit Habits” were certainly heartbreaking due to their despondent lyrics, but there was an endearing, pathetic nature to the sound that drove the point home-- here was a guy unlucky at love, trying as hard as he can to make typically “pretty” music and failing. First single “Head On” is sweetened with a classic soul melody, strings and Honus’ chin-up solace directed at one of those poor souls who might’ve related to the aforementioned: “hold onto your heart/ never let nobody take it over.”

But don’t take “Head On” as being indicative of the lyrical direction here. On Oni Pond shifts Honus’ attention from the paranoia and morbidity that marked Life Fantasticto what can be heard as a concept album about male sexual futility. This is a theme that’s hardly new for Man Man. But while Honus is one of indie’s most lecherous lyricists, there’s always been a sadomasochistic bite to it. Here, there’s something of paradoxical swagger is in his ability to empathize with those getting no satisfaction. The inability to get one’s rocks off is arguably the lifeblood of rock and roll, and people tend to do crazy shit when engorged-- for example, using Anne Frank as a psychosexual muse and having the Civil War serve as a contextual framework for a tough time at college. Maybe you think it’s tasteless and even insulting for Honus to evoke Guantanamo, conflict diamonds and “that child raised by Kony," but he’s flexing and realizing his subject matter is inherently absurd. Just as often, the humor results in some real groaners (a played-out Silence of the Lambs reference, the faux-Oriental vocals on “Pink Wonton”, the title of “Pink Wonton”) and the narrowness of the subject matter can feel stifling for everyone involved-- the self-explanatory submission fantasy “Loot My Body” is the first song to really feel like Man Man madlibs.

The worry here is that maturity might actually mean Man Man getting stuck in their ways, though “End Boss” can be read as a self-aware self-help talk: “if you won’t reinvent yourself/ you can’t circumvent your hell.” And if “Fangs” isn’t a late-album intervention, it’s a certainly a welcome acknowledgement of the other side in the war of the sexes. It’s not the first time Honus has written about a woman with something to hide. But unlike the murderous cross-dresser of “Poor Jackie”, the subject here is more relatable, someone who “had a fantasy of being the female Steve McQueen” but instead, “hides her fangs/ behind her back … pretends to laugh/ at the boxes she’s been born in.” Like most songs of this nature, there’s the threat of Man Man being far longer on good intentions than keen insight. Fortunately, “Fangs” avoids condescension as the rest of On Oni Pond serves as an unintentional vindication for Honus’ viewpoint here: when you consider the horny, slobbering suckers that populate the majority of Man Man songs, you might begin to understand how shitty it must be to have to deal with it all. So while softer and more empathetic the band isn’t quite tamed yet; On Oni Pond is a Man Man album through and through, delivering an occasionally bizarre and fantastical look at the very real human condition.